Dharmesh Shah

Founder and CTO at HubSpot. Helping millions grow better.

Career startup guy.

Author of the book &quot;Inbound Marketing&quot; (http://InboundBook.com)

Specialties: Entrepreneurship, Software Development, internet marketing,SEO

Founder and CTO

Founder of HubSpot, a venture-backed software startup.  HubSpot offers the industry's first inbound marketing system for small businesses.  The software is available as a hosted service (SaaS).

Here's a quick tip on how to build an effective presence on LinkedIn.

Too many people on LinkedIn are "performing" for their current (and future) followers.

Instead of self-centered performing, focus on generous *sharing*.

We all have something to share that will be helpful/useful to others. Things we are experts in or passionate about. What's often even better is sharing mistakes we've made and lessons we've learned. 

Share, don't perform and you'll pull people in.

* I fall into this "performing vs. sharing" mode sometimes too.  

** "effective presence" is not just about the number of followers, likes or comments. It's about having genuine impact on somebody's thinking -- even if just for a moment.

Lots of people much smarter than me have been talking about this compelling new idea called the "Context Graph". I love the idea, but am a wee bit skeptical of far away we are from it being something businesses can use.

A concept is making the rounds in AI circles right now that has many people very excited: context graphs. Foundation Capital published a piece calling

Open article: Context Graphs: Capturing The "Why" In The Age of AI by Dharmesh Shah • 4 min read

Context Graphs: Capturing The "Why" In The Age of AI

I'm  a massive fan (and daily user) of agentic coding tools like Claude Code and Codex CLI.

One of the questions we'll need to ponder in 2026:

How do you make sure that the compounding value you are getting from the use of agentic coding exceeds the interest on the technical debt that AI creates along the way?

The hope is that we'll be able to use AI itself to pay off the technical debt as the models and tooling get better.

We've long known that the best people have IQ + EQ.

When it comes to AI agents and their effectiveness, there's a new element — and it's multiplicative.

Agent Success = IQ  x EQ x  CQ

IQ = How well does it reason?
EQ = How well does it collaborate?
CQ (Context Quotient) = How well does it know YOU?

And because it's multiplicative, if an agent has a zero context quotient, it has zero value. (Apologies for revisiting grade school math).

Here's a quick thought exercise:

You can choose between two agents.

Agent A: 200 IQ. Bonafide Genius. Knows nothing about you.
Agent B: 150 IQ. Brilliant. Knows your business cold.

You pick Agent B. Every time. Why?

Agent A can solve PhD math problems.
Agent B can help solve YOUR business problems.

Raw intelligence without context is just confident guessing. (Also known as "management consulting"). 😀 

AI models know a lot about the world, but you need agents that know about YOUR world.

The real game isn't How smart is your model? It's How are you increasing the agent's CQ?

Imagine if it had...
...your top rep's call recordings.
...your angriest detractor's NPS comment.
...your happiest promoter's renewal notes.
...and everything else swirling around in your company

The agents that help you win aren't the ones with the highest IQ. They'll be the ones who know you best.

This is what we're furiously working on at HubSpot, because nowhere does context matter more than in GTM and nowhere is there more unified context than the HubSpot platform.  (Disclosure: As founder/CTO, I'm biased). 

We're excited about the progress the AI companies are making on delivering smarter LLMs  (higher IQ). We need that to build great agents. Meanwhile, we're working on delivering agents with higher CQ. (And stay tuned for the EQ part -- have thoughts on that too).

Anyhoo...

Key takeaway: In the age of AI agents...

IQ gets attention.
CQ gets results.

Woo hoo! Shipping an early release of a new AI app I've been working on. (Look at me, shipping something in the middle of the day instead of 2am!)

If you're curious about premium website domains and their underlying prices and trends, I think you might enjoy playing with this app:

domainsales .ai (yes, I like simple domains).

You can  ask questions like:

 "what were the top .ai domains sold this year."  

"what was the average price for .org domains every year".

"what's the sales history for chat .com "

All feedback appreciated. Feedback is a gift.

Thanks.

-Dharmesh

NOTE: I'm using this (and other) AI apps to test out new Agent.ai platform features that allow you to use any vibe coding tool to build apps and integrate them into the marketplace. That way, you benefit from 2.5M+ users, shared context and a bunch of tools you can use in your agents.  More on al this next week.

Was recently on a podcast with Manny Medina from Paid.

Was a great conversation around business strategy, pricing and of course, AI.

I'm not used to being on podcasts (not my natural habitat), but I think it turned out pretty well. Hope you like it.

Dharmesh Shah helped write the SaaS playbook.
Now he’s explaining why parts of it are about to get ripped out.

In today’s episode of Get Paid, the HubSpot co-founder doesn’t sugarcoat it:

AI agents aren’t a feature.
They’re a platform shift.
Seats still matter. For now.
Credits are inevitable.

And most “AI strategies” are just SaaS habits in disguise.
They go deep on why reasoning models changed the game, why vibe coding won’t save you, and why pretending this is a normal upgrade cycle is how incumbents quietly die.

If you’re building AI and telling yourself “we’ll figure pricing out later,” this episode is a warning shot.

🎙 New episode is live. Link in comments.

Nice to see folks combining the flexibility of Agent.ai and its access to a rich set of AI capabilities and data with the power of HubSpot Workflows for automation.

Senior Software Engineer | HubSpot-Focused Integrations & CRM Automation

I've been having a blast combining Agent.ai workflows with HubSpot automation lately, and the results have been impressive.

Here's what I've been able to automate:

Buyer Intent Detection -> Agent.ai monitors signals across multiple channels and automatically scores leads based on engagement patterns, content consumption, and behavioral triggers. When intent spikes, HubSpot workflows kick in with personalized outreach.

Company Intelligence Gathering -> No more manual research. The system automatically enriches company records with technographics, funding data, org structure, and relevant news. Everything flows directly into HubSpot properties, keeping our CRM current without lifting a finger.

Lead Qualification & Routing -> AI agents assess fit based on ICP criteria, then route qualified leads to the right team members with full context. Sales reps get notifications with a complete brief, not just a name and email.

Follow-up Orchestration -> Based on engagement signals, the system determines optimal timing and messaging for follow-ups. It's like having a sales ops team working 24/7.

The real power is in the combination: Agent.ai handles the intelligence gathering and decision making, while HubSpot executes the workflows and maintains the source of truth.

For teams drowning in manual research and qualification work, this stack has been a game changer.

Huge thanks to Dharmesh Shah for making this technology accessible and for his visionary presentation on AI at INBOUND this year. The future he outlined is already here, and it's incredibly exciting to build with these tools.

Want to automate your workflows with AI? Whether you're looking to streamline sales processes, enhance lead management, or build custom integrations, I'd love to help. Drop me a DM or comment below with what you're trying to solve.

#AIAutomation #HubSpot #SalesAutomation #AgentAI #CRMIntegration #MarketingAutomation #SalesOps #AIAgents #WorkflowAutomation #B2BSales #RevOps #SalesTech #AITools #BusinessAutomation #LeadGeneration #INBOUND2025

Fractional CCO + Advisor | Building Brand Affinity at the Intersection of CX, Social Media, & Community | Award-Winning Leader | Featured in Adweek, Forbes, The Next Web, PR Daily, Entrepreneur, and Digiday

I’ve worked across social, customer advocacy, community, and marketing, and I’ve seen the same customers from every angle. 

I’ve also seen how internal silos quietly prevent companies from creating the kind of customer experience they talk about. Each team does its job well, but when those efforts aren’t designed to work together, customers experience fragmentation instead of care.

Early in my career, I helped build programs that performed exactly as intended within their lanes. Engagement was high. Metrics looked strong. And yet customers still went quiet. Loyalty stalled. Trust eroded.

What I learned is that customer-brand relationships don’t fail because teams aren’t trying hard enough. They fail because the relationship is managed in pieces instead of as a whole.

Today, I help organizations transform customer-brand relationships by rebuilding trust, emotional connection, and humanity through intentional CX systems that cut across silos rather than reinforce them.

My work is grounded in two core frameworks: 
1. My Customer Hierarchy of Needs, inspired by Maslow but designed for modern customers. Most companies stop at functionality and efficiency. Very few design for the higher levels where emotional safety, trust, and advocacy are earned, which is why customers disengage long before churn shows up in the data.

2. My Relational Trust Infrastructure framework. It helps teams move beyond after-the-fact metrics and instead build systems that sense trust erosion early. This includes operationalizing relational signals like customer silence, disengagement, and emotional distance across social, community, marketing, and support so CX becomes a shared responsibility.

I’m a Fractional Chief Customer Officer, CX strategist, and the author of Transforming Customer–Brand Relationships (Kogan Page, 2025). 

I’ve worked with startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies through neuemotion, HubSpot, the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), and ICUC. 

My work has been featured in Adweek, Campaign US, Forbes, CMSWire, and HubSpot Academy, and I’ve spoken at events including INBOUND, CNX, and Digital Summit.

If you’re working to repair or strengthen customer-brand relationships, you can learn more about my work or reach out directly here on LinkedIn. If you want to go deeper on the thinking behind this approach, my book Transforming Customer–Brand Relationships is linked below.
 https://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Customer-Brand-Relationships-Emotional-Connection/dp/1398621323/ref=sr_1_1

Christina Garnett, EMBA

them: Keep it professional... keep it professional...

me: MY BOOK WON AN INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD FOR MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS!!!!!

Christina Garnett

Author, Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships | Trust Is the Strategy | CCO & CX Advisor | Featured: Adweek, Campaign US, Forbes, PR Daily, CMSWire

A lot of people say they want community when what they really want is an engagement pod.

Transforming customer-brand relationships by rebuilding trust and emotional connection through intentional CX systems | CCO + CX Consultant + Author | Featured: Adweek, Campaign US, Forbes, PR Daily, CMSWire

Welcome back everyone. 

May your inbox and circle back requests be light.

The brands that win scale trust, not content.

Nothing says you care about the customer like a no-reply email address.

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Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing

CX 101

Voice of the Customer (VoC)

User Insights for Product Decisions

Marketing Leadership

Generative AI Fundamentals

Introduction to Generative AI

Introduction to Large Language Models

Introduction to Responsible AI

Retention + Engagement

The Best of Nudgestock

Growth Series

Foundations of Project Management

Applied Behavioral Science

Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Science for Brands

Social Media

Product Masterclass: How to Build Digital Products

AI Accountability Essential Training

Elements of AI

Executive Data Science Specialization

Business Strategy

Business Strategy Specialization

Digital Marketing Specialization

We’re an advertising agency that takes big brand marketing to definable social audiences with science-backed creative ideas. 

We use neuroscience principles in content execution with proven efficacy and performance (double digit lifts over norms, anyone?) so that we can focus on the big ideas and not sweat the end result. 

Founded in 2023 by former Head of Production at Twitter/X, Ted Harrison, we provide solutions that meet you where you’re at in your social content & strategy journey. Projects big and small are always welcome. We’re simply: here to help.

I focus on what our customers care about and make sure they feel it in everything we say and do.

At neuemotion, I lead how we communicate and connect, from brand and media to the full customer experience. My role is about clarity, consistency, and building trust that lasts.

A few highlights:
📰Coverage in Business Insider, Quartz, Forbes, CMSWire, Campaign US, Ad Age, PR Daily
📢Build our voice, visibility, and recognition strategy from the ground up
💡Committed to putting customer insight at the heart of every story we tell

Run PR + award campaigns, including:
🏆 Webby for B2B Social for Salesforce’s "Ask More of AI" 
🏆 Platinum Hermes Award for Toast's Keith Lee "It's the Little Things" giveaway
🏆 Collision Award for Art Direction for LinkedIn NewFronts
🏆 Shorty Impact Awards (judge and audience honor) for B2B for Toast's Keith Lee "It's the Little Things" giveaway

Chief Customer and Communications Officer (fractional)

Operational Excellence: Developed and implemented a comprehensive operational structure for customer onboarding, enhancing the customer experience and reducing onboarding time.

Customer Satisfaction Leadership: Established and optimized Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Quarterly Business Review (QBR) processes.

Thought Leadership & PR Strategy: Spearheaded PR initiatives, securing coverage for neuemotion and team members in prestigious publications such as Forbes, Digiday, and Content Marketing Institute, as well as securing podcast appearances and speaking engagements to enhance brand visibility.

Audience Intelligence Development: Designed and executed a detailed framework for building customer profiles and performing audience intelligence, enabling data-driven decisions and targeted marketing strategies.

Chief Customer Officer (fractional)

Covering news in the world of CX, brands, fandom, and social media.

Contributing Writer

Creation:
- Co-create the social media version of the Community Canvas
- Co-design the Social Media Community Foundations and Community-Led Content Strategy Academy courses

Customer and Community Experience:
- Incorporate customers as experts and thought leaders into HeyOrca's content
- Develop strategies for improved social media and community interaction
- Find PR opportunities for the team and community

Chief Community Officer (fractional)

- Advised on the creation of the HeyOrca Stans program
- Advised on community building and advocacy

Advisor

Author | Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships

Offering CCO services and strategic consulting for agencies and startups.

Founder

Advisory Board Member

Covering marketing, social media, customer experience (CX), and branding.

Customer and Community Experience:
- Led the strategic planning and execution of the Customer Advisory Board (CAB), engaging top-tier customers to drive product innovation, and gather actionable feedback.
- Designed and launched the Teal Connect customer community, fostering peer-to-peer interactions, enhancing customer engagement, and creating a feedback loop that informed product development and marketing strategies.
- Assisted in creation of a customer beta testing directory.

Strategy:
- Developed and refined detailed customer personas based on comprehensive market research and customer insights, ensuring targeted marketing efforts, personalized communication, and enhanced customer experience.
- Mapped out the customer journey across multiple touchpoints, identifying key moments of engagement and pain points, and implementing strategies to optimize customer satisfaction and retention.
- Implemented metrics and KPIs to track the success of the CAB and community initiatives.
- Crafted tailored communication strategies for different customer segments, leveraging personas to deliver relevant content and drive higher engagement across the customer lifecycle.
- Built PR SOP and social listening plan
- Crafted team responsibility breakdown for CS, Community, and Social

Chief Experience Officer (fractional)

- Built out foundational CX structure (audit current practices, set up NPS, customer health checks, and customer advisory board)
- Led success and support teams
- Prepared transition documentation and helped on-ramp full-time CCO once they were hired

Chief Customer Officer (fractional + interim)

Developed community-led growth strategies and lead HubSpot's HubFans advocacy program, creating and launching the Speaker Bureau and co-creating Sales Hub Community Perspectives.

Launched and led Magik Makers NFT project to delight and educate community members about NFTs, web3, and the metaverse.

Created social media strategy and management best practices for HubSpot Academy.

Led advocacy efforts at INBOUND: Correspondents, HubFans/Community Champions and Magik Maker meetups, and the Daily Recap Show with George B. Thomas.

Principal Marketing Manager, Offline Community and Advocacy

Created, launched, and led: 
- HubFans Council and gamified advocacy program
- Revenue Council
- Advocacy Blog
- INBOUND Correspondents Program
- INBOUND After-Hours Show with George B. Thomas
- HubSpot Academy social media strategy playbook

Impact: 
- Grew HubFans gamified program from 0 to 37k members and 4k+ active advocates and HubFans Council from 0 to 197 top-level advocates across partners and customers.
- INBOUND Correspondents created 1,200+ pieces of UGC for 2021 event, 1,600+ pieces of UGC for 2022 event.

Strategy: 
Develop strategy and lead efforts for HubSpot's customer advocacy program (gamified, events, external community, and GTM)

Recognition: 
- 2022 Winner of CustomerX Impact Awards, Innovation Driver Category
- Named Top 100 CMA (Customer Marketing and Advocacy) Strategist by Base in 2022 and 2023
- Finalist for CAP Awards, Advocacy Mindset Category
- HubFans nominated for two CMX Community 2022 Awards: Best New Community and Best User Group

Senior Marketing Manager, Offline Community & Advocacy

- Consult with startups on GTM, community, and advocacy
- Created social media strategies for nonprofits, educational institutions, and small businesses
- Audited current social media presence
- Consulted with current social teams to determine gap opportunities and future campaigns
- Social media management (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook)
- Paid management (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Google)
- Clients: Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Tech Roanoke Center, Ferrum College, Venveo, The Golden Shoestring, Downtown Boone, Franklin County Economic Development, Industrial Biodynamics, Pixlee, Cone Realty Group, Relief from Pain, RKNCPA, Faber CPA, K12 Leadership

Founder | Marketing Strategist and Consultant 

- Data Analysis: Reviewed AI lens results of tested customer images
- Strategy and Reporting: Built strategy decks with visual intelligence analysis and guidelines to improve future image selection for campaigns and digital shelf

Senior Insights Strategist

- Created strategy playbooks and implementation plans for Fortune 500 companies
- Led and trained moderation team to perform social media responsibilities: brand voice, escalations, client relations, social listening
- Performed social listening and sentiment monitoring across client social accounts
- Monitored news/PR mentions for sentiment and content opportunities
- Performed regular social audits and competitive analysis to determine optimization opportunities
- Advised and worked with in-house brand team on copy, assets, and publishing needs
- Created and managed influencer campaigns for select clients

Strategist

- Consulted with small businesses and entrepreneurs on their marketing needs and strategy
- Curated all content across platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Constant Contact.
- Designed, built, and managed new website at www.roanokesmallbusiness.org
- Created promotional materials for SBDC in print and digital form.
- Provided short- and long-term market forecasts and reports by directing market research collection, analysis, and interpretation of market data.
- Created and maintained marketing calendar for all SBDC efforts
- Created and implemented FAQ and business spotlight series for Facebook live 
- Managed and created workshop curriculum 
- Acting Chair for the Virginia SBDC Branding Committee
- Contributed to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed

Marketing Director

CCO + CX Consultant + Author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships | @ the intersection of CX + Social Media + Community | Featured: Adweek, Campaign US, The Next Web, Forbes, PR Daily, CMSWire

Peter Wheeler

If you've ever run a community in person or online, you've earned a minor in sociology.

I’ve spent my career sitting inside a lot of different teams. 

Social. Customer marketing. Advocacy. Community. Support. Brand. And often, the connective tissue between them.

What that’s given me is a very specific vantage point. I’ve seen the data each team holds. The signals they notice. The moments of trust or frustration they’re closest to. And I’ve watched how often those insights stay siloed, even though they’re all about the same customer.

Community teams see the long arc of relationships. They know who shows up even when there’s nothing in it for them, who quietly disappears, and what people talk about when they think no one is listening. 

Advocacy and customer marketing teams understand motivation, credibility, and why some customers raise their hands while others never will. 

Social teams see real-time sentiment, context, and culture. 

Support teams sit with customers at their most vulnerable moments, when the relationship is either repaired or broken.

None of this work exists in isolation. The overlap is not accidental. It’s there because customer relationships don’t fit neatly into org charts.

Community pros should be working closely with customer marketing and advocacy. Social and support should be in constant conversation. Not because it’s efficient, but because they are often seeing different chapters of the same story.

When those teams don’t talk, customers feel it. They repeat themselves. They feel unseen. They sense the disconnect even if they can’t name it.

Customer experience isn’t owned by one function. It’s created by the sum of these interactions, across time, channels, and moments of need.

The sooner organizations stop treating these teams as separate motions and start treating them as parts of a shared relationship, the sooner collaboration stops feeling optional. And when that internal alignment clicks, CX stops being a slide in a deck and starts being something customers actually feel.

That’s how you get customer experience as good as it can get.

As we start 2026, I keep coming back to this idea of competing with yourself.

Not in a hustle way. Not in a “do more, be more, prove something” way. But in a quieter, more honest way.

Somewhere along the line, a lot of us were taught to treat our careers like a zero-sum game. If someone else is winning, it must mean we’re behind. If we slow down, we’re falling off. If we’re not visible, we’re not relevant.

This has led to us being burned out, stressed, and unable to unplug. 

In 2026, I hope you invest in yourself. Not just in skills or credentials, but in the things that actually make your work and your life sustainable. Learning because you’re curious, not because it will look good online. Protecting your energy. Choosing work that feels aligned instead of impressive.

When you stop competing with everyone else, something really freeing happens. You make clearer decisions. You build deeper relationships. You stop chasing things that were never meant for you in the first place.

Growth doesn’t have to be loud. Progress doesn’t have to be comparative. And success doesn’t have to come at someone else’s expense.

So if you’re setting intentions for 2026, maybe the goal isn’t to win more. Maybe it’s to become more of yourself than you were last year.

A lot of new faces around here, so hi 👋 I’m Christina.

At my core, I’m deeply multi-passionate. I was an English major who fell in love with story and language, then spent five years as a math teacher learning how people actually learn, struggle, and build confidence. If you’re wondering how those two things coexist, the answer is: humans are both emotional and analytical, and you can’t serve one without understanding the other.

That background is what shaped my humanist approach to customer experience. I don’t believe CX is a function, a funnel, or a metric. It’s a relationship system. It’s how people feel understood, supported, and respected over time, especially when things are imperfect. Story teaches you empathy. Teaching teaches you patience. Both teach you that trust is earned, not demanded.

Before stepping into CX leadership, I worked as a social strategist at ICUC, partnering with Fortune 500 brands and learning what it looks like when brands show up publicly at scale. Earlier than that, I worked directly with small business owners as the marketing director for my local Small Business Development Center, helping people build something from nothing and reminding me that real customers don’t care about frameworks, they care about whether something actually helps.

I’m probably most well known for my work at HubSpot, where I launched and led HubFans, one of SaaS’s most recognized customer advocacy programs, and created the INBOUND Correspondents Program to elevate customer voices on one of the biggest stages in marketing. That chapter reinforced a belief I already had: customers are your most credible storytellers if you design the system to let them be.

Eventually, I left to start my own fractional Chief Customer Officer offering and consultancy. Today, I work with brands that want senior-level customer leadership without the full-time overhead, helping them design trust, community, advocacy, and experience as intentional systems rather than side projects.

A big part of my point of view comes from my version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, reimagined for customers. Most brands never move past functional needs, yet they expect loyalty. Belonging, emotional safety, and trust don’t just happen. They’re built.

That thinking became the foundation of my book, Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships, which explores what it looks like when brands treat customers like participants in a relationship, not outputs of a funnel.

When I’m not working, I’m a nerd. Sarcastic, curious, deeply invested in fandom, books, and pop culture, and a fan of the Virginia Tech Hokies. Loyalty, heartbreak, and hope are themes I understand both professionally and personally.

If you’re here because you care about customers as humans, and not just numbers in a dashboard, you’re in the right place.

I’m glad you’re here.

If you run a book club here, whether it’s focused on business, CX, leadership, or just a group of curious people who like to dig into ideas together, I’d love to join you for a conversation about my book, Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships.

Writing it led to some of the most thoughtful and honest conversations I’ve had about trust, connection, and what actually holds customer-brand relationships together. 

I’m always happy to talk through the ideas in the book, what surprised me while writing it, what I wrestled with, and what feels especially relevant right now for teams trying to build meaningful customer bonds.

If that sounds like a fit for your group, feel free to comment or send me a DM.

#LinkedInBookClub #CX #Business

I’m gonna hold your hand when I say this, because a lot of us were taught to think about customer experience this way and it takes effort to see the cracks.

We treat CX like a journey just like marketing and sales still think in funnels. Both assume there is a finish line that matters more than what comes after. Purchase, resolution, renewal. We map it, measure it, congratulate ourselves, and then turn our attention back to the beginning.

But relationships do not pause just because a transaction is complete. When the “journey” ends, the relationship either strengthens, slowly erodes, or fades out without drama. Most CX work is not built to notice that middle state where nothing is broken but nothing feels meaningful either.

Framing CX as a journey pushes teams to optimize for movement instead of commitment. The goal becomes getting people through steps rather than giving them a reason to stay once there is nothing left to accomplish. That is how you end up with customers who are technically retained but emotionally distant, satisfied enough to stop complaining and detached enough to leave when something better appears.

The question most teams avoid is simple and uncomfortable: when the customer does not need anything from you, why would they still choose you?

That answer does not live in flows, tools, or milestones. It lives in whether you remember context, whether you repair things without defensiveness, and whether customers trust your intent when no one is watching.

If your CX strategy cannot explain how you earn that kind of commitment after the journey ends, it is not really about experience. It is about completion.

Dear leaders,

This is what your customer facing teams wish you knew. 

Most CX issues aren’t happening because teams don’t care or aren’t trying hard enough. They happen because the people closest to customers can see exactly what’s broken, but don’t have the authority, alignment, or air cover to fix it.

We’re often told to “own the customer experience,” while being excluded from the decisions that shape it. We hear the frustration in real time. We see the patterns forming. And then we’re asked to make it work anyway.

There’s also a gap between what leadership says matters and what the company actually rewards. Speed still beats care. Efficiency still beats clarity. Internal optics still beat customer trust. People don’t ignore the customer on purpose, they optimize for what keeps them safe and employed.

From the inside, teams operate in functions. From the outside, customers experience one relationship. Support knows one version of the truth. Sales knows another. Marketing is telling a story the customer is trying to reconcile with reality. That disconnect doesn’t feel like strategy to the customer. It feels like chaos.

Customer feedback isn’t noise. It isn’t anecdotal. By the time churn shows up in a report, the relationship has already been damaged for a while.

And silence is not a win. When customers stop complaining, it’s usually because they’ve stopped believing anyone is listening. 

A lot of frontline energy gets burned defending decisions instead of fixing problems. You can feel that tension in the experience, even when teams are doing everything they can to stay professional and kind.

Trust is not something you can delegate to a team. You can’t assign it to CX and move on. If leadership doesn’t model it, fund it, and protect it, the experience will always crack under pressure.

Customer-facing teams don’t need more pep talks. They need alignment. They need cover. And they need permission to fix what customers are actually reacting to, not just what’s easiest internally.

If you want to understand your real customer experience, start by listening to the people closest to it. They already know where it’s breaking.

One of the easiest ways to improve your customer experience work is to think like a journalist before you think like a marketer.

Before launching any CX program, campaign, or initiative, I run it through the basic questions: Who. What. Why. When. Where. How.

Because this is where CX efforts quietly fail.

✨WHO is this for from the customer’s point of view? Who inside the company owns the relationship when something breaks?

✨ WHAT are we actually trying to change in the customer experience? What should feel different for them?

✨ WHY does this matter to the customer right now? Why should they trust us with their time, attention, or data?

✨ WHEN does this show up in their journey, and when will we know it’s working or creating friction?

 ✨ WHERE does this live in their experience, and where are we tracking the signals that tell us how it’s landing?

 ✨ HOW will this be delivered in a way that feels intentional, consistent, and human, not bolted on?

Most CX issues aren’t caused by bad intentions. They’re caused by incomplete thinking.

When teams skip these questions, customers feel it. The experience feels disjointed. Trust erodes. Silence creeps in.

Journalists ask these questions because clarity is non-negotiable.
Customer experience deserves the same rigor.

It's just me and my Google alerts against the world.

Trust can’t be a value anymore. It has to be a strategy.

Brands have spent years optimizing for speed, scale, and efficiency. Now they’re confused about why customers are quieter, loyalty is thinner, and relationships feel fragile.

This isn’t a mystery. Trust was never designed into the system.

I’m hosting a free Maven call called Trust Is the Strategy because this year, brands that don’t operationalize trust will keep paying for it in churn, indifference, and missed growth.

We’ll talk about:
✨ what trust actually looks like inside customer experience
✨ how it breaks long before metrics show it
✨ and how leaders can design for it intentionally, not accidentally

No platitudes. Just a real CX conversation from someone who’s been accountable for customer relationships at scale.

If you’re responsible for customers in any real way, this matters.

📅 Wed, Jan 28, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM EST (30 minutes)

We have engineered the human out of the customer experience.

That’s why I love seeing one of my CX predictions for 2026 being quoted in the latest by MarketerMagazine.co and why, for the sake of customers everywhere, I hope I'm right. 

We didn’t break CX with bad tools. We broke it by removing the human element.
Automation scaled efficiency, not trust. Templates replaced judgment. 

Customers feel processed instead of understood.

CX in 2026 is about putting humanity back into the system.

For this week’s Pocket CCO, I wrote about what happens before customers leave.

In this issue, I share why trust works as a leading indicator and how to build systems that can actually surface trust signals early. Customer silence is one of those signals, but it’s rarely the only one and almost always misread.

Before you read it, try this small experiment:
✨ Choose one trust-bearing moment in your customer experience. A moment where customers usually have to explain context, wait, or follow up.

Now run this simple comparison for the next five business days:
✨ Track how your current CX system behaves when customers respond
✨ Track how your current CX system behaves when customers go quiet

Specifically, notice:
✨ Does silence trigger curiosity or closure?
✨ Does anyone follow up, or does the workflow end?
✨ Is silence interpreted as satisfaction, abandonment, or something else?

If silence quietly closes the loop, you’ve found a place where trust can erode without being noticed.

Seeing that contrast once will permanently change how you evaluate CX decisions.

Welcome to Pocket CCO. If you’ve ever wished you had a Chief Customer Officer in your pocket, you’re in the right place. Pocket CCO is a weekly newsle

Open article: If Trust Is the Strategy, This Is the System by Christina Garnett • 5 min read

If Trust Is the Strategy, This Is the System

Customers don’t become loyal first. They become comfortable, then familiar, then willing to stay.

I just dropped a new piece in Canary in a Brand Mine - Substack, and it digs into why we need to stop treating loyalty like a switch customers flip. There are real steps that come before it, and most of them are quiet, emotional, and easy to miss if you’re only watching dashboards.

Before loyalty, customers need ease.
Before loyalty, they need habit.
Before loyalty, they need to feel like engaging with your brand doesn’t require extra effort or constant self-advocacy.

When those conditions erode, customers don’t usually leave loudly. They disengage slowly. Replies get shorter. Usage drops. Silence creeps in. By the time churn shows up, the decision has often already been made.

This piece is about what brands still get wrong about human behavior, why silence is an early signal, and what customer-facing teams see long before the data catches up.

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The Battle

Dharmesh Shah

Christina Garnett, EMBA

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Engagements

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